


Off the Floor

by GettheSalt



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 06:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettheSalt/pseuds/GettheSalt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor has a small chat with his brother after the events in Stark Tower.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off the Floor

Tony snorted and stepped out of their bunch, shaking his head. “You know what? You can get that drink.” The reactions of the others were varied, which was only to be expected; Steve gave the man a look as he moved away towards the bar, stepping to follow him, while Clint burst out ‘well if he’s getting a drink, I want one too.’ Thor’s eyes stayed on Loki while the archer assassin got to his feet, not without giving the defeated demi-god a look full of promise if he tried anything, and followed Steve and Tony. Natasha was the only one who bothered to catch Thor’s gaze, stepping forward with one hand on his bicep. He assured her with a look that he would and could handle Loki on his own, preparing his brother for transport back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and consequent transport home. She nodded once and followed Clint. Regardless of their distance from where Loki was struggling to hoist himself into a sitting position, Thor was acutely aware of at least three pairs of eyes on them from the general area of the bar, and one from closer to the glass wall where he knew the Hulk was lumbering, probably itching for further action.

For his part, Loki seemed stuck between played the child caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and annoyance that he had been defeated by what he had called ‘such lost creatures’. Thor sighed, letting Mjolnir slip in his grip before he looped the strap through his belt and moved forward to crouch beside his brother. Slowly, gingerly, like he was dealing with an animal that could and would be easily spooked – and that was essentially what Loki had been boiled down to – he reached out and laid a hand on the other’s shoulder. Surprisingly, Loki allowed it with nothing more than a soft sigh.

“Are you hurt?” Thor asked in a low tone, eyes trained on his brother’s face. Loki wasn’t trying very hard to mask his emotions anymore, not for the moment, it seemed, and the glare that he leveled on Thor was wholly expected and yet, not expected at all.

“Of course I’m hurt, you oaf,” he hissed, eyes narrowed and the corner of one lip curled as though he was disgusted at Thor’s apparent idiocy. “I was tossed about like a child’s toy by that,” he looked away from Thor to gesture vaguely towards the Hulk, who looked over and bared his teeth in response. Thor held up a hand, hoping to keep the other at bay, and noticeably untensed when the creature went back to chipping away at the broken windows. “Thing,” Loki finished on a breath Thor decidedly wouldn’t mention his brother had been holding.

Thor shifted, moving from crouching to sitting beside Loki, ignoring the incredulous look the other gave him. At the bar, the others were watching them; Tony and Steve discreetly, from behind their glasses and their own discussion about how offering the villain a drink wasn’t exactly sending a good message, Clint and Natasha blatantly, even as Clint drank from a large bottle of some alcohol he’d grabbed from behind the bar. Thor chose to ignore them, turning so he could keep on hand on Loki’s shoulder, fingertips grazing the side of his neck. “I told you this dream of yours was a poisonous one.”

Loki’s only response was something that sounded suspiciously like a growl while his eyes made immediate contact with anything in the room that wasn’t Thor. The thunder god sighed, moved his hand to squeeze the back of Loki’s neck lightly, a move that he hoped both communicated his need for Loki to listen, but also his support and love for his wayward brother. The message must have gotten through, given the annoyed look Loki turned back on him.

They sat in silence for quite a few moments. The chatter between the others continued, the thumps of the Hulk’s footsteps still moved about the perimeter of the room, and they sat, not saying a word. Thor took the time to look his brother over, to finally look at him without the urgency of regaining the tesseract, or doing battle. Time and whatever realm it was that Loki had fallen into when the Bifrost had been destroyed had made work of the brother that Thor had known. Loki was harder, his eyes shone, even now, every few moments, with a bit of a more manic glint than he’d ever caught before on Asgard. He looked thinner in the face, but felt bulkier in body. His hair had gotten long, and Thor found himself thinking fondly of what their mother would have said on another occasion.

Thor did find something familiar still remained in Loki, and that was a large chunk of what he felt of his brother before all the events of the attack on Jotunheim after his failed coronation. Loki may be hurt, driven to insanity by his own mad quests and the twisted truths about himself that he’d been weaving for months on end, but in the end, in Thor’s heart, and deep down in his own, Thor was sure, he was still Thor’s brother.

Loki was the one to finally break their silence and examination of each other. “I suppose you will be getting precisely what it was you wanted.”

Thor frowned, confusion taking hold of his mind, an unpleasant change from the surety he’d been nursing only seconds before. “I’m coming home,” Loki explained, clearly having read and understood the confusion on Thor’s face. Thor didn’t answer, too caught up in the whirlwind of achievement and anxiety that Loki’s words ignited in him. Evidently, the pause was too much, and for but a split second Thor caught the look of true and real terror in his brother’s green eyes. “You are taking me back to Asgard, aren’t you?”

Some childish voice inside told Thor to prolong his answer, or answer in truly vague terms. It would be no less than Loki deserved for what he had done; it wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface. But, that voice was not the person that Thor was, not the person he had become, and to his brother, whom he loved dearly and truly despite everything, he would not be that person. Casting quick looks at his new friends, those who still watched him warily (well, between tending to Bruce Banner, who had, while the two gods had their silent discussion, seemed to have made his reappearance), he gave a nod.

“Yes, brother,” he ignored the miniscule twitch of Loki’s upper lip at the name. “You will be coming home with me.” He didn’t mention the fact that he meant to bring the tesseract back to Asgard with them – it being truly the only way they could return – which was probably just as well, though he was sure Loki suspected. Loki, for his part, nodded, only remembering to mask his relief a split second after it had written itself in big, bold, childish lettering over his face. Thor didn’t mention it, but did give the back of Loki’s neck another amiable squeeze.

“I do have one small request,” Loki finally piped up again, many minutes later when they’d both been handed glasses of something golden and warm by Tony, despite the wary looks from the rest of the team. Loki’d drained his half-glass, and set it on the rumble by his heel. Thor took the cue and clinked his long empty glass into Loki’s, then gave him a raise of eyebrows meant to urge him along.

Loki looked hesitant, and that had Thor raising all kinds of internal questions of his own. He was sure his friends would not wish him to hear out any kind of request from Loki, but as he’d said, Loki is his brother, and that means he will hear him out. Another moment and then Loki conceded. “I sincerely doubt my body’s abilities to cooperate if I endeavour to get off the floor under my own power. I don’t trust any of your… friends,” he just about spat the word, “so my only choice is to ask you to help support me where ever it is you’ll be carting me off to.”

Loki was not making eye contact anymore, the gravity of being unable to support himself after being smashed into a floor causing him some kind of great shame. Thor almost took pity on him,

Almost.

Then it occurred to him that it was here that he could begin to extract his own brand of punishment from his little brother, before they went before Odin and the Elders. “That will be fine, I think,” he answered with a short nod, and Loki seemed to take this as answer enough, lapsing back into silence.

When the team received the call that transport was ready for them to return them to S.H.I.E.L.D, the others looked to Thor on how to deal with Loki, who, truthfully, had been admirably well behaved in the half hour or so since he and Thor had begun talking. Thor caught Steve’s eyes and nodded once; Steve answered Director Fury over the communication device that they wouldn’t need assistance to bring Loki in, and had matters under control. Bruce had been clothed in plain slacks and a plain white shirt, clothes that Tony had salvaged from one of the nearby rooms, the others were on their feet and ready. Clint’s fingers were toying absently with the curve of his bow, and Tony had still not gotten out of the Iron Man armour. It was clear how much they did not trust Loki to come quietly, but Loki would fall to Thor to control.

Thor got to his feet, Mjolnir swinging at his hip, and offered a hand down to Loki. The god of mischief did not pause before taking it (a good sign) and moving to pull himself into a stand. Thor let him get enough off the floor then he bent, pulling Loki’s arm around his neck, before swooping both his arms under the other’s back and knees, hefting him up from the floor in his arms. For a brief second, there was shock, or something mimicking it, written on the faces of all present, Loki not the least of all. Then Loki was growling, pressing his bruised and bloodied face into the red fabric and metal at Thor’s shoulder, the only true recourse he had to evade the blossoming amusement of Thor’s comrades.

“Don’t enjoy this so much, Thor.”

Thor shrugged his opposite shoulder, chuckling in response. Loki groaned and turned his face to bury it in the curtain of Thor’s hair, defeated and unwilling to allow his bruised pride to be even more accosted by showing his face to his captors.

And for a while, moving down out of Stark tower, Thor was more at peace than he’d been in a while. Loki may be annoyed and cranky, and he may not want anything to do with this whole in-Thor’s-arms business, but he wasn’t making an honest attempt to escape, very possibly because he simply wouldn’t get far, but it didn’t hurt to pretend. And pretend Thor would, because in the back of his mind, he knew, whatever awaited when they returned to Asgard, it would not be so lenient a punishment as this.

Truly, he found he was dreading it.


End file.
